Adolescents as victims of familial violence: a hospital based surveillance |
| |
Authors: | Saluja G Marquez V Cheng T L Trumble A Brenner R A |
| |
Affiliation: | National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DESPR/NICHD/NIH), 6100 Executive Blvd., Room 7B03, Bethesda, MD 20892-7510, USA. salujag@mail.nih.gov |
| |
Abstract: | Adolescent abuse is an important and understudied issue in society. The objective of this study was to examine the epidemiology of physical injuries due to maltreatment among adolescents aged 10-19 years. Subjects came from seven hospitals/trauma centres in Washington DC that were involved in the Washington DC Initiative to Reduce Infant Mortality and Prevention of Childhood Injuries Study. From 1996-1998, information was gathered about all injuries to adolescents aged 10-19 years that resulted in a visit to a participating emergency department. This paper focuses on the subset 178 adolescents aged 10-19 years who presented with physical injuries due to maltreatment. It was found that 55% of victims of abuse were female. Abuse victims were more likely to be female than those with unintentional injury. The most common injuries were contusions to the extremities (29%). Mothers were the most common perpetrators (48%). A total of 64% of victims were assaulted with an object/weapon and the most common object used was a belt. There are some similarities and some important differences between patterns of maltreatment in adolescents vs. younger children. Increased awareness of maltreatment among older children is a critical step in increasing and improving screening and prevention practices among health-care professionals. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|